


The Memory Thief

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Yuma is a Girl [48]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Body Horror, Gender or Sex Swap, Labyrinth References, Other, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 03:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: Yuma falls to her knees, hands over the empty spot where the Key should be. “He’s gone,” she cries.





	The Memory Thief

“Did we win?” Zexal asks, and within her head, Astral answers, _‘Yes, we did.’_

But 96 isn’t done. He launches himself at them, screaming that he’ll just take their body. But Astral splits Zexal apart, and 96 pierces through his chest.

Yuma screams. 96 flows under Astral’s skin like ink, Yuma can hear the spirit screaming that it will destroy everything Astral holds dear. But Astral squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a mighty roar, and a light covers him. There’s an explosion, and when the light fades, Astral hovers over a hole in the field.

“Astral!” Yuma screams, running to the edge of the hole. “Why did you split us apart?!”

Astral grins. “Because I couldn’t allow you to be hurt. I love you too much, Yuma.”

“I love you too,” Yuma cries, tears stinging her eyes, “That’s why I wanted to stay with you, to help you!”

“But there was nothing you could have done,” Astral murmurs. “I’m sorry, Yuma. Your life is too precious. You must go on, you must go back to your friends and loved ones. And I…I must go.”

“Go where?!” Yuma screams, “No, not without me! We promised we would always be together!! Astral, please, we need each other, I need you! I love you!”

Astral’s body begins to fade. He smiles. “I love you more than I ever thought…” he says, and he vanishes into a spiral of light.

Yuma lets out a wordless scream. The Key is torn from her neck, and vanishes into the light that took Astral. There’s a bright flash, and Yuma stands on the embankment next to the river, where she was with Kotori, Kite, and Orbital before all this started.

“It was a dream,” she gasps. “I dreamed it all…” She reaches for the Key, but it’s gone. “No,” she says. She looks at Kotori, but she’s on her knees, sobbing. Kite has his back turned to her. Orbital’s head is down.

“Yuma!” Ryoga calls.

Yuma falls to her knees, hands over the empty spot where the Key should be. “He’s gone,” she cries, her throat tight like she’s being strangled. “He’s…gone. We said we would be together but he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone just like mom and dad!” She screams, “Astral, come back, please! Please, come back to me!” Someone hugs her, and she fights against them. “Let me go! I have to go after him! I want to go after him! I don’t want to go on without him, I can’t go on without him, no, no, no! It’s not fair!” She screams, hysterical, over and over, until she can’t breathe, until the lack of air makes everything disappear.

 

* * *

 

The sharp smell of rubbing alcohol and cotton hits Yuma’s nose before she opens her eyes—it’s the smell of a hospital. Who brought her here? It must have been Ryoga, or Kite. Wait…Ryoga didn’t come to the other dimension with them, why was he there when she…when she screamed for Astral…

Astral, who left her.

Yuma opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling. Was it real? Was any of it real? Did she really go to another dimension? Is Astral really gone? Was Astral even there at all? It all seems so unbelievable…

She hears a door open and looks over to it. Akari hurries in, looking frantic. “Yuma! What happened?”

What indeed? How can she explain it to Akari when she doesn’t fully understand it herself? She looks back at the ceiling.

Yuma hears a man’s voice talking to Akari. “…brought in by the kids outside. Said she fainted after a skateboarding accident. She does have some injuries, and none seem to be to her head, but she hasn’t been very responsive. We’ve tried asking her questions, but she won’t talk, she barely looks at us.”

Yuma feels someone touch her arm.

“Yuma, honey, can you look at me?”

It’s Akari. Yuma closes her eyes. She’s so tired. She doesn’t want to look at anyone.

“Please talk to me. What happened? Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”

Yes, but not physically. But it feels physical. Like her heart’s been ripped out of her body. Like her ribs have been crushed. Like any minute now something will explode out of her chest.

“Breathe!” Akari screams.

She takes a shallow, ragged breath in, suddenly aware of a rapid beeping. An oxygen mask is pressed to her mouth, and a sob rises in her throat. She wheezes, she chokes, she blacks out…

 

* * *

 

She wakes up, but keeps her eyes closed.

“…like this after our parents went missing,” Akari is saying. “Is it possible she had some sort of relapse?”

“I suppose,” says an unfamiliar voice. “Grief is a very tricky thing, especially in young adults. Did she go to therapy?”

“Yes, for a long time,” Akari says. “She made progress, she was doing so well, she even went back to school and made friends, she won a duel tournament this year. I don’t know if I…if I missed something. She’s been private lately, but she’s fourteen, that’s normal, isn’t it?”

“Easy now,” says the voice, “Don’t go blaming yourself. As the kids out there if something happened to trigger a relapse—it would probably be better coming from you.”

Yuma wants to laugh; Akari won’t get any answers from her friends, not true ones at least. Not like she would probably believe the truth, anyway.

The door opens and closes. Yuma opens her eyes and looks around. She’s alone.

She’s truly alone. For months Astral has always been there—even when she couldn’t see him, she could feel him in the key, resting just next to her heart. They fell asleep together every night, holding hands. She leaned on him so often these past few months. It was stupid of her, she should have known he would go someday. Maybe not so soon, but doesn’t everyone leave? Mom, dad, Rio, Ryoga—they all left. Grandma is getting older, too. Akari is older than her by several years, she’ll die first. Someday Yuma will be all alone. Why is she surprised that Astral left her?

Because they were soulmates. They said so even before they started thinking of each other in a romantic sense. Surely it must hurt Astral too, being apart…so why did he go? Did 96 hurt him?

Yuma gets out of bed. She walks to the window and opens it. This part of the hospital doesn’t have bars on the windows, just a simple screen that she easily pushes out. The cool air kisses her face and toys with her hair. She inhales, but all she smells is smog. Astral said that his world smelled like water. Did he go back? Does it matter? She doesn’t have a way to get to him.

The door opens and people start screaming at Yuma. She doesn’t fight them when they usher her back to bed, slam the window shut, and start barking for her to be moved to another room.

“Put her on suicide watch,” One man says.

But I don’t want to die, Yuma wants to tell him. It’s not true, she does want to die, but only if Astral is truly never coming back to her. Oh, what does it matter? These people will never listen to her anyway.

 

* * *

 

A parade of people marches in and out of Yuma’s room. Faces swim in front of her eyes and voices plead with her. Talk to us, tell us what happened. Eat something, drink something.

Kotori, Tetsuo, Ryoga, Rio, Tokunosuke, Cathy, Takashi, Kite. All of them try to speak to her, and get her to speak to them. But Yuma is delirious, pumped full of anti-psychotic drugs that make her head spin, especially on an empty stomach. How can she possibly eat when Astral is gone, and she can’t sneak him bites of her food? He was such a dork, he even loved plain rice!

She sees Astral sometimes—not even the drugs can keep him away, even though it’s his fault the doctors gave them to her in the first place. He hovers over her while she’s awake, and he’s there in her dreams. The nightmares are terrible, she can’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time without seeing Astral stabbed through the chest by 96. She wakes wake up screaming, crying, unable to breathe, babbling about monsters. Of course the doctors think she’s crazy.

“Just talk to them!” Ryoga hisses at her. “Lie, make it up! Do something to get out of here!”

Astral floats behind Ryoga’s head, but it’s not really Astral, because his eyes aren’t silver and gold, but rather pure black. When he smiles, his mouth is full of pointed teeth.

Yuma holds her breath until she passes out.

 

* * *

 

Yuma dreams that she’s dancing. She’s wearing a beautiful dress, Sarah’s dream dress from Labyrinth. She dances first with the Goblin King, then with Ryoga, then with Astral. Then she switches back and forth with Ryoga and Astral. Every time she blinks, her partner changes. Ryoga is handsome as a king, in a dark tuxedo with a shimmering white shirt under the coat. His tie is made of some kind of gem, a familiar gem if she’s honest, but not one of this earth.

Astral is handsome as well. He wears a sheer robe, and she can’t tell if it’s blue or white, but it hardly matters, because she can see his body through it either way. His skin is stained black, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.

“I miss you,” Yuma tells Astral.

Ryoga smiles at her. “I’ve brought you a gift.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a crystal,” Astral answers. “Nothing more. But if you turn it this way…”

“And look into it,” Ryoga continues, “It will show you your dreams.”

“My dreams?” Yuma asks. She’s not dancing any more. She’s standing in the dark, and she’s cold. “My dream is…to have Astral back.”

“Go back to your room,” Says Ryoga and Astral’s voices combined. “Play with your toys and your costumes, and forget.”

“But I can’t,” Yuma says slowly. “I can’t...”

 

Yuma opens her eyes. She looks next to her—her IV has been disconnected, her arm bandaged up where the needles were. She’s not getting medication any more. Her head is still fuzzy, but she can finally think—she’s thinking of Labyrinth. She’s also thinking that she wants to go to Heartland.

Yuma gets out of bed. “Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City.” She gets dressed and grabs her duel disk and cards. “For my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom is as great…” Her backpack is on the floor. She digs through it and grabs her pocketknife. She walks through the halls. No one tries to stop her. “For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great...Damn, I can never remember that line. You have no power over me.”

Yuma walks out of the hospital and through the streets. It’s dark, it must be the middle of the night. No one pays attention to her as she walks, mumbling the entire script of the movie in a monotone. Ponta prods at her, telling her to turn back, but she ignores him. She’s probably still hallucinating. She passes all the places she and Astral went. She tries not to think about him.

“You can only ask one of us. It’s in the rules. And I should warn you that one of us always tells the truth—and one of us always lies. That’s a rule, too. He always lies. I do not, I tell the truth. Oh, what a lie.”

She makes it to the base of Heartland tower. “Don’t sound so smart,” She whispers, “You don’t even know what an oubliette is. It’s a place you put people…to forget about them.”

“To forget about them,” A familiar voice booms.

Yuma whirls around. “YOU!” She cries.

“Me,” Mr. Heartland says with a grin. “Come now child, are you so surprised to see me? Did you think Barian world would let me go so easily?”

“What do you want?!” She snarls.

“Nothing new,” Heartland tells her. “I want the Numbers, just as I’ve always wanted them.”

“Too bad, they’re mine,” Yuma says.

“Yours?” Heartland asks. “I thought the Numbers belonged to Astral. I thought they were his memories.”

Yuma feels like she swallowed ice. “Don’t say that name!” She snaps.

“Ooh, touchy,” Heartland says. “Poor Yuma, having to carry around those Numbers. Constant reminders of Astral, of the love she lost.”

Yuma swallows. “Through dangers untold…”

“And hardships unnumbered,” Heartland says. “Yuma’s life has been hard, hasn’t it? She’s lost so much.” He walks in circles around her. “Poor Yuma, such a pity. Wouldn’t it be easier to give up the Numbers, just as Sarah wanted to give up her baby brother? Why, it would be like Astral had never existed.”

Never existed…?

“Yes,” Heartland says. “Why live with such bad memories? It will be as if it was just a dream.”

“It was a dream,” Yuma whispers. “I dreamed it all. But it was so real…”

“There’s nothing for you out there,” Heartland says. “All your treasures are at home, in your room. Don’t you want to go back? Don’t you want to forget?”

Yuma reaches into her back pocket.

“That’s it,” Heartland says. “Just give me the Numbers. Forget Astral, like Sarah forgot the baby.”

“Sarah didn’t forget Toby,” Yuma says. “She fought for him.” She looks at Heartland and sees him clearly—he’s not a Goblin King, or a wizard, or the answer to her problems. He’s a horrible old man who preyed on the weak, and Yuma is not weak.

“You are a child,” Heartland says, reaching for his duel disk.

But Yuma whips her knife from her pocket. She launches herself at Heartland and catches him off guard. She knocks him to the ground and sinks the knife into his stomach.

“It’s junk!” She screams she yanks the knife out of his skin. Instead of blood, black ink pours out of the wound. She splays her fingers over his chest to hold him down while she stabs, over and over and over, “It’s all junk, all of it! I don’t want your lies, I don’t want to forget! I want Astral, I want my memories!”

She stabs and stabs, Heartland gurgles at her, eyes pitch black and mouth full of pointed teeth, clawed hands reaching for her. She screams and stabs, and the ink turns into flies that come at her, stinging against her face as they fling themselves out of Heartland’s body. He smells like death, he looks like 96, he looks like a monster.

“You have no power over me, you have no power over me!” Yuma sobs. Her arm aches from the repetitive motions but she keeps sinking the knife into the mutilated body of the thing beneath her. She doesn’t even remember what it was, but it frightened her and she wants it dead.

“Yuma, Yuma!” A voice cries.

Someone holds her, pinning her arms to her chest. She’s pulled back, away from the body. She writhes and screams, she tries to yank herself free, but she’s so tired.

“Let me go,” she begs, “Let me go, please, I want to find him, I want him back, I need him back, I can’t forget, I don’t want to forget!”

“Shh,” the voice says. “It’s okay now, Yuma. Heartland can’t hurt you anymore.”

Yuma blinks tears out of her eyes. Pink hair, green eyes, a warm smile…she knows him. “Michael?”

He smiles at her. “That’s right. You didn’t forget me, did you?”

Yuma inhales, then sobs. “What happened?” She whimpers.

Michael hugs her. “It doesn’t matter. It’s okay now, you’re safe. No more hospital, no more drugs, no more hallucinations. I’m going to take you home, to your sister and grandma.”

Yuma clings to Michael. “Did I kill him?”

“Heartland? I don’t know. I think he was…it doesn’t matter. Come on Yuma, let’s get you home.”

Michael carries her in his arms the whole way. She leans her head on his shoulder. She fiddles with the buttons on his collar. She sings to herself.

“You remind me of the babe…”

Michael doesn’t sing with her. Astral would sing it with her. But Astral isn’t here anymore.

Michael unlocks the door to her house. He sets her down. Yuma goes to her sister’s room. Akari is asleep at her computer. Yuma puts a hand on her shoulder and she sits up, rubs her eyes, and looks over.

“Jesus!” Akari screams, jumping. “Yuma, what are you—how did you—the hospital!!”

Yuma sits in Akari’s lap and wraps her arms around her shoulders. She rests her head against Akari’s neck.

“Hey, sis?” Yuma whispers, “I have to tell you something.” Tears sting her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. “It’s going to sound crazy, but it’s all true, so hear me out. A few months ago, Ryoga broke my key pendant from dad, and I dueled him to get it back. And in the middle of the duel, I kind of blacked out, and a door appeared to me…”

It’ll take hours to tell Akari the whole story, but it’s going to be worth it. Her sister deserves to know everything.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, Heartland was there, but as you can see...nothing like canon.


End file.
